Wolves in Study Shot,
Killed in Minnesota
For scientists studying gray wolves
in northern Minnesota, and for
the wolves they were studying,
last fall's deer-hunting season was
a disaster.
At least three gray wolves wearing
active radio-transmitter collars were
shot and killed in the Minnesota woods
during the last week of the hunting sea
son, the U. S . Fish and Wildlife Service
reported. A fourth wolf shot was wear
ing a radio collar that was no longer
sending signals.
The gray wolf is listed as threatened
in Minnesota and endangered every
where else in the United States except
the state of Alaska.
David Mech, project leader and au
thor of four GEOGRAPHIC articles about
wolves, says that about 30 wolves were
wearing active radio collars at the time
of the shootings. The collars usually
transmit for only three years. One of
the wolves killed was a female that
Mech and his colleagues had been
tracking since 1981. Because of the
data she had provided, "she was like
one in a hundred," he says.
The slain animals were in an area of
about 5,000 square miles, and the two
wolves closest to each other were more
than six miles apart, making it unlikely
that any single person had shot
more than one, Mech says. One radio
collared wolf was killed in the 1988
deer-hunting season, but none had
been lost in the previous three years.
Radio collars are used to provide
population data and information on
wolf breeding, movement, and behav
ior within a pack.
JIM BRANDENBURG
Is This the Source
of Bronze Age Tin?
W hen George Bass directed exca
vation of a Bronze Age ship
wreck off Ulu Burun on the
Turkish coast (GEOGRAPHIC, Decem
ber 1987), he and his divers found
remains of numerous bronze objects as
well as tin ingots. Bronze is an alloy,
primarily of copper and tin.
Where did this Bronze Age tin come
from? Until now no one has known for
sure. The answer may be: almost next
door to the wreck site.
K. Ashhan Yener of the Smithso
nian Institution has found a tin mine in
Turkey's Taurus Mountains dating
from between 2900 and 2200 B.C.
about a thousand years before the ship
wreck. Yener and her team also found
charcoal, pottery sherds, stone tools,
and animal bones, indicating that
workers may have lived in the mine.
There is a link to the Ulu Burun
wreck, Yener says. Analysis shows that
lead from the area is identical to lead in
net sinkers found on the ship.
"Tin was the major component of
this mine, but it also yielded iron, and
others in the area had copper, gold,
and silver," says Yener. "The whole
region contained minerals."
Near the mine, Yener's team has
found a major Bronze Age metal pro
cessing site with as many as 25,000
stone tools: hammerstones, adzes,
axes, pounders, mortars, and pestles,
among others. "Early miners may have
been processing a whole array of ores
and shipping the metal to the coast,
about 150 miles away," Yener says.
"Ships may have stopped there to pick
up cargo."
Footprints on the Trail
of the Earliest Humans
Ever since Mary D. Leakey and her
team discovered 3.5-million-year
old footprint trails that may have
been made by our human ancestors
(GEOGRAPHIC, April 1979), debates
have raged among scientists. What
creatures left their prints in volcanic
ash at Laetoli in Tanzania? How
"human" were they? What do the
prints say about the way these early
upright walkers lived?
Russell H. Tuttle, an anthropologist
at the University of Chicago, has con
cluded that the most extensive tracks at
Laetoli truly are similar to those of
modern humans-those of us, at least,
who go barefoot.
Tuttle noted that studies of human
gait had been done only on people who
wear shoes. So he went to the moun
tains of Peru and asked 69 Machi
guenga Indians, who have never worn
shoes, to walk on pressure-sensitive
paper so that he could record their
footprint impressions.
Tuttle measured their feet, the
length and width of their stride,
the way they walked from step to step.
The result? "Overall," says Tuttle, the
Laetoli footprint trails "bear telling
JOHNREADER, PHOTORESEARCHERS
resemblances to those of habitually
unshod Homo sapiens."
One difference is that two of the
three Laetoli hominids had a wider
stride than the typical Machiguenga.
But, says Tuttle, that may be because
the early hominids were walking on
moist volcanic ash on uneven terrain;
the Indians were walking on a level
earthen volleyball court.
Suggestions for GEOGRAPHICA may be
submitted to Boris Weintraub, National
Geographic Magazine, Box 37357,
Washington, D. C. 20036, and should
include the sender's address and tele
phone number.
(I i:RA1)
NiiltI
PHC
MAZINE
a(
i0l19